Published: Tuesday, November 6, 2012 at 05:46 PM.

BOILING SPRINGS — To be taken seriously in college basketball, a program must play a challenging schedule.

For Gardner-Webb University, quite a few tests await. The 2012-13 season begins Friday night with the Runnin’ Bulldogs heading to the Dean E. Smith Center in Chapel Hill to open against the perennial strong Tar Heels.

“It’s a great opportunity for us,” said GWU coach Chris Holtmann, starting his third season at the GWU helm. “We want to play a national schedule. It’s our goal every year to have a top-10-or-15 program on our schedule.”

Besides UNC, DePaul, Iowa, Illinois and East Carolina are notable non-conference games ahead in a particularly rough early-season trail.

“We’re going to learn a lot about our team,” said Holtmann, whose ’Dogs went 12-20 last season. “We want to take an attacking, aggressive approach and get what we want coming out of this stretch.

“I’m proud that the last two years we’ve had some competitive battles with a lot of people. We led all of Division I in two-possession games last year. We hope will have the ability (defensively) to stop people more and give ourselves a chance to win more of those.”

BOILING SPRINGS — To be taken seriously in college basketball, a program must play a challenging schedule.

For Gardner-Webb University, quite a few tests await. The 2012-13 season begins Friday night with the Runnin’ Bulldogs heading to the Dean E. Smith Center in Chapel Hill to open against the perennial strong Tar Heels.

“It’s a great opportunity for us,” said GWU coach Chris Holtmann, starting his third season at the GWU helm. “We want to play a national schedule. It’s our goal every year to have a top-10-or-15 program on our schedule.”

Besides UNC, DePaul, Iowa, Illinois and East Carolina are notable non-conference games ahead in a particularly rough early-season trail.

“We’re going to learn a lot about our team,” said Holtmann, whose ’Dogs went 12-20 last season. “We want to take an attacking, aggressive approach and get what we want coming out of this stretch.

“I’m proud that the last two years we’ve had some competitive battles with a lot of people. We led all of Division I in two-possession games last year. We hope will have the ability (defensively) to stop people more and give ourselves a chance to win more of those.”

Holtmann has also tried to address the team’s overall athleticism with such new additions as 6-foot Jarvis Davis, 6-foot-6 Onzie Branch and 6-foot-5 Jerome Hill.

“We improved our length and athleticism,” said Holtmann. “And I’m excited to see them on the floor. We’ve also got a significant amount returning who have some starting experience, so we have some interesting pieces.

“Our overall skill level is not where we want it to be, but we’re heading in the right direction.”

A focus for GWU this season will be to push the ball inside to create better scoring opportunities.

“An early emphasis for us is paint touches,” said Holtmann. “In our offense, that’s very important.”

That could help an area where GWU definitely needs progress — getting to the foul line.

“If Tashan is getting 4.4 free throw attempts a game, to be one of the top five in the league, he needs to be getting five or six chances a game,” said Holtmann. “We also need to see Donta improving there as well. You get that by attacking and getting points inside and in transition.”

The key to success this season has been devised by the Runnin' Bulldogs themselves.

“In a mission statement that they devised," said Holtmann. "The most important things are to be unselfish and to get one percent better every day. I hope we have the maturity and mental toughness to deal with the gauntlet of this first month. This team has the potential to do some good things.”